Understand global perspectives on effective information practices that are
supportive of cultural, economic, educational, or social well-being.
Introduction
Librarians are expected to remain informed of global perspectives on information science. In particular, they should pay close attention to how the profession supports culture, education, and social well-being. They should also be on the lookout for innovative ways their peers raise the standard of living for their constituent communities as well as how they facilitate this on a larger global scale. Advocacy is one of the methods in which librarians as professionals and libraries as institutions can have a global impact. One of the foundational principles of librarianship is respect and diversity. Librarians also advocate and defend democratic principles such as the freedom of the press, the rights to privacy, freedom of speech, and intellectual freedom. They contribute to globalization be seeking to standardize global communication and seek to bring technology to the financially disadvantaged. Librarians around the globe continue to advocate for open access content.
Explication
Rural Libraries and Access
Part of global information practices is to make accurate information available to distant locations. Around the globe rural areas often lack library service. Rural areas will supplement existing library services with free little libraries in their communities that operate on the basis of the honor system (Vidal, 2022).
Around the globe, librarians seek to bring library services to rural areas. While libraries in the United States rely on the bookmobile, conditions in other nations have libraries utilizing different methods to achieve the same means. In Zimbabwe, donkeys pull two-wheeled, roofed carts. Three of these counts carry solar panels to power a computer, printing, and phone charging (Cooke, 2017).
One of the challenges to providing resources to rural areas is securing a stable Internet connection. Libraries generally purchase from the commercially available options in the area, but the increased costs of terrain make high speed Internet connections difficult to obtain and troublesome to sustain. Often outside support is required for libraries to provide high speed Internet to remote areas. The Kern County Library, the Mariposa County Library, and the Fresno County Public Library are currently experimenting with microwave transmission to beam the bandwidth of a fiber optic connection from an access point or point of presence (PoP) to libraries nestled in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. These connections were only made possible through government assistance.
Advocacy of Democratic Principles
Libraries are “fundamental institutions in democratic societies” (ALA, 2020). Current events have cast the spotlight on the efforts of librarians to advocate for democratic values. In particular news stories of libraries upholding the tenets of intellectual freedom by opposing book bans have been fairly prevalent in the year 2022. In a democracy, it is inevitable that one group’s politics and morality will clash with another group. The act of one group imposing their morality on society inherently restricts the freedom of others outside their group. Libraries defend democratic ideals by guaranteeing the equitable access to library resources and services. Censorship is a weapon of denial employed to impose a set of beliefs on the larger whole through the suppression of opposing alternative views. Intellectual freedom is only possible when the population has access to all viewpoints. To facilitate intellectual freedom, libraries must also make it a point to have opposing viewpoints represented in their collections as directed by the ALA Library Bill of Rights (2019). The ALA has also incorporated sustainability and social equity as part of its broad social responsibilities.
These values are something the librarians of the United States, Canada, and other countries of Western civilization take for granted intellectual freedom, a free press, privacy, and freedom of expression is not a social norm for many nations. It highlights how lucky I am that I practice librarianship in a country that is not under a dictatorial regime that oppresses citizenry by depriving the people of their fundamental liberties. Advocacy of democratic principles is one of the methods in which librarians as professionals and libraries as institutions can have a global impact.
Diversity and Multiculturalism
Dovetailing with this advocacy of democratic principles is the celebration of multiculturalism. Libraries seek to connect communities together and expose them to diverse ideas. This is done by creating programs and displays with an international focus. Examples of this are hosting guest speakers such as authors to speak on works that address diversity or hosting traveling exhibits.
Libraries shall recruit and maintain a multilanguage workforce to accommodate non-English speakers. Hiring and recruitment should follow a diversity plan. A diverse staff can serve as a gateway to bridging the cultural divide between ethnic communities.
The marketing of non-English materials is necessary to reach communities of non-English speakers. Part of equitable access is the support of a collection of foreign language materials, through the selection of relevant materials for the local immigrant communities. Building sites should also be equipped with multilingual signage whenever possible and libraries should prioritize the hiring of staff fluent in the languages spoken by the surrounding immigrant communities.
Personally, I have experienced great difficulty in assisting non-English speaking patrons with their technology-based questions. Generally, I rely on Google Translate through the web browser and have occasionally employed a translator app on my smartphone to assist with limited success in communicating with such patrons. Service points such as the reference desk or circulation desk should be equipped with a patron-facing screen to facilitate communication with non-English language speakers through Google Translate. This setup is also useful in reference and readers advisory and for demonstrating the library’s online resources and instruction on the subject of technology literacy.
A significant portion of immigrant communities experience financial hardship. Libraries strive to help such persons by providing connecting them to resources or financial support. Libraries also strive to assist with independent study and can have specific resources dedicated toward the acquisition of a second language.
Digital Divide and Globalization
Huge disparities for technology exist between developed and developing nations, but what libraries in the United States share with their counterparts in other countries is the desire to close that disparity known as the digital divide. While the digital divide is larger than any one institution to handle, that should not prevent libraries from supporting localized solutions to ameliorate larger problems. For example, recently the Fresno County Public Library began checking out Chromebooks and hotspots to provide the financially disadvantaged access to the Internet outside of library hours.
One trend of information science with regards to globalization is its advocacy for universal technical standards—and in particular global bibliographic standards. The field of information science has consciously decided to replace the MARC metadata schema in favor of a metadata structure that focuses on linked data as the new global standard to transmit and store bibliographic information.
“BIBFRAME initiative…is designed to integrate with and engage in the wider information community and still serve the very specific needs of libraries.” (Library of Congress [LC], n.d.) A MARC environment is focused on records that are independently understandable. While such a result can be beneficial, in practice; this has resulted in significant duplication of information. The BIBFRAME Model seeks to rely on relationships between resources such as Work-to-Agent relationships to describe works, instances, and items. BIBFRAME accomplishes this through the use of controlled identifiers. While MARC uses controlled identifiers in some instances such as geographic codes and language codes, controlled identifiers are the rule and not the exception in BIBFRAME (LC, n.d.).
Of some note is that the materials and components of BIBFRAME are currently in the public domain (Library of Congress [LC], n.d.). This should help foster the adoption of BIBFRAME, but it remains to be seen if BIBFRAME will be put behind a paywall to cover the costs of upkeep of the standard by the designated authoritative institution. It should be noted that BIBFRAME is designed to be flexible and is neither a cataloging code, subject heading list, or classification scheme. The aim of the designers is to establish a framework that minimizes the adjustments required to meet unforeseen future needs. BIBFRAME holds significant promise to the field of information science to overcome the shortcomings of MARC.
BIBFRAME 2.0 follows the continuing trend of globalization. “Globalization is “the process of integrating regions via communications and economics” (ACRL, 2012). Part of a global information practices is to have accurate information of these distant places. Having a global cataloging standard such as BIBFRAME 2.0 will facilitate that.
Open Access
Librarians around the globe advocate for open access. They support online education resources (OER) and institutional repositories. They advocate for net neutrality. When possible, they use open standards when communicating with each other and their clientele. Open standards are “a formal set of conventions in the public domain, not owned by and thus dependent on any hardware or software producer or platform.” (de Lorenzo, personal communication, 2020, slide 21)
Free and open does not necessarily mean uncredible. With considerations of expense and resource allocations, reference staff should develop a core group of free resources that they can rely on to answer reference queries.
In addition, one of the roles of the reference librarian is as an instructor of information literacy. It follows that reference librarians will need to be familiar with the ins-and-outs of Wikipedia, Google, and other such platforms to assist patrons in better utilizing such platforms and secondly to try to persuade them to use more credible resources to fulfill their information request. This is why it is critical that reference librarians are familiar with an assortment of open and free reference resources. It would be all but impossible to convince a patron to use a resource that is behind a paywall but convincing them to try out a free resource is manageable. Whatever the case Google, Wikipedia, and other freely assessable, but not necessarily credible sources of information are here to stay and reference librarians cannot afford to ignore the impact that they are having on society and in particular on their patrons.
Respect for copyright is one global information science practice that supports economic and educational development. Libraries around the globe can avoid copyright infringement by using material that is accompanied with a creative commons license.
Evidence
Evidence 1: Reflection of Smarter than You Think: How Technology is Changing our Minds for the Better—Blog Post
As evidence of my knowledge and comprehension of global perspective on information practices, I offer the WordPress blog post “Reflection of Smarter than You Think: How Technology is Changing our Minds for the Better.” In the blog post “Reflection of Smarter than You Think: How Technology is Changing our Minds for the Better,” I draw attention to how informal lines of communication may have increased importance in countries which lack a strong media, particularly, the presence of an independent press. The example that was discussed in the blog was how Ory Okolloh’s blog on Kenyan corruption turned into a clearinghouse for credible information during Kenya’s rigged 2017 election and media blackout as violence spread across Kenya.
This blog post discusses how the Internet has widened the potential reach of non-professional or amateur publications. While libraries have acknowledged the influx of amateur published content by being quick to explore the positive benefits of non-professional content, the profession has yet to definitively establish guidelines on how to manage or curb the drawbacks of unvetted amateur content. This is particularly important as libraries strive to provide credible information from different perspectives. In addition, the blog post highlights the potential of social media. This potential has prodded libraries of all types to engage their clientele through social media on a regular basis.
This document demonstrates how intellectual freedom, a free press, privacy, and freedom of expression is not a social norm for many nations. It highlights how lucky I am that I practice librarianship in a country that is not under a dictatorial regime that oppresses citizenry by depriving the people of their fundamental liberties.
Evidence 2: Global Search Engines and the World Wide Web
I have put forward this discussion response (from INFO 202 Information Retrieval Design) as proof of my insight on global differences between discovery tools and the content of the World Wide Web.
To test global search engines, I selected (at the time) the future 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan as a global event that all countries should have some content on. At the time of this discussion, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil had previously hosted the 2016 Summer Olympics. Due to their selection as host countries for the Summer Olympic Games, I tested Japanese and Brazilian (Portuguese-language) search engines.
I attempted to select search engines from companies that I did not recognize to limit the influence of American-based companies. I did test my search query in both English and the local language. To help navigate the results, I used the Chrome web browser to translate webpages that were written in a foreign language. Unfortunately, the lack of results from these foreign search engines forced me to select American-based search engines or foreign versions of American-based search engines. The fact that I was forced to use American-based companies—despite searching in the local language—highlights the dominance the United States has on technology. The disparity between the results from these search engines and a country’s local analogs speak to the level of proficiency of technology and digital communication of said country in comparison to the United States.
The Ask search engine’s ranking algorithm for both the English query and its Japanese translation ranked Wikipedia pages more highly than official websites who were, in turn, ranked more highly than news articles. It should be noted that both the Ask search engine, Yahoo! Brasil’s ranking algorithm gave Wikipedia webpages a higher ranking than official websites, and that official websites were ranked more highly than the news media. The lack of diversity from the Portuguese language results suggests that the Portuguese World Wide Web is less developed than either its Japanese or English counterparts.
The ranking of Wikipedia pages so highly in the algorithms across the board speaks to the importance of the algorithm and to information science personnel to understand how it works especially in regards to how it retrieves relevant, and credible information.
The results hint at another aspect of global communication and that is the dominance of the English language. As a natural born United States citizen, I have found that the most troublesome part of this assignment was the language barrier. It felt like the language barrier had handicapped my ability to determine why the Iscle search engine and why the Exploora search engine could not retrieve any results relevant to the 2020 Summer Olympics. This assignment was a stark reminder on how I have taken English’s use as the de facto international language for granted.
Evidence 3: International Thesaurus of Refugee Terminology (Thesaurus Evaluation)
As evidence of my insight into the complexities of global communication between multiple languages and indexing content in a multilanguage ecosystem, I proffer this examination of the International Thesaurus of Refugee Terminology.
This document demonstrates ability to analyze the structure of thesauri by being able to distinguish identical structure between three of the four main languages of this thesaurus. At the time, the Russian version was not available to the public. I also discuss the nuances of dialects and pick on hints that British English and European Spanish was used over their new world counterparts.
Conclusion
It is a basic criterion for information science professionals to be knowledgeable of the global trends that affect the field. It is important that they uphold democratic principles and push to broaden the perspectives of their clientele to a multicultural inclusive society by respecting and celebrating the diversity of experiences. “These values include that the libraries are an essential public good and are fundamental institutions in democratic societies” (American Library Association, 2020). Librarians should be relentless in their advocacy and support of increasing access to remote and rural locations. Libraries and their staff should do what they can to bridge the digital divide.
References
American Library Association. (2019, January 29). Library bill of rights. https://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/librarybill/
American Library Association. (2020, September 28). Core Values of Librarianship. https://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/corevalues
Association of College and Research Libraries. (2012, May 4). Diversity standards: Cultural competency for academic libraries (2012). http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/diversity
Cooke, L. (2017, 5 October). Donkey-drawn mobile libraries bring books to people in Zimbabwe. Inhabitat. https://inhabitat.com/donkey-drawn-mobile-libraries-bring-books-to-people-in-zimbabwe/
GeoLinks. (2022, March 2). Internet + digital voice for business. https://geolinks.com/
Gilman, Todd. (Ed.). (2017). Academic Librarianship Today. Rowman & Littlefield.
Library of Congress. (n.d.-a). BIBFRAME frequently asked questions. https://www.loc.gov/bibframe/faqs/#q03
Sue, J. (2016, March 7). Reflection of smarter than you think: How technology is changing our minds for the better. Jasonsuelibrary. https://jasonsuelibrary.wordpress.com/2016/03/07/reflection-of-smarter-than-you-think-how-technology-is-changing-our-minds-for-the-better/
Vidal, Gabriela. (2022, March 1). As Wentzville students sue district over banned books, local bookstores help highlight diverse literature. KMOV4. https://www.kmov.com/2022/03/01/wentzville-students-sue-district-over-banned-books-local-bookstores-help-highlight-diverse-literature/